The current state of balance in Killing Floor

[Major Liability]

Once I mastered this version's berserker and realized I could survive anything on my own I lost all desire to play other perks, or sit around with the camping players.

I suppose that means he is OP, but I'm never going to enjoy KF as much again if it becomes impossible to kite.

 

[FrozenFireBug]

My Thoughts

My Thoughts

Medic- Balanced, strong armor, good speed and healing, yet obviously doesn't have the combat capabilities of other classes and is a female dog to level.

S.Spec.-Slighty OP, doesn't really need a change. The shotgun buff aspect is fine but I feel he gets too many extra abilities

Berzerker- Balanced what he lacks for in destructive power he makes up for in survivalist skills. (Damage resistance, extra speed, the ability to kill a FP without raging it, can actually function without ammo.)

Sharp- Ovepowered, dispatches larger specimens very quickly and can do decent against crowds when spamming like an idiot.

Firebug- Balanced, takes down crowds very quickly but needs some assistance against larger specimens.

Commando- Between a Firebug and a Support Specialist, never really exceeds at killing anything in particular, although the whole increased vision thing helps a tiny bit.

Demolitions- Slightly OP, takes down crowds and larger specimens extremely quickly but at the risk of self damage and with the penalty of long reload times.

 

[Zoridium JackL]

Sharp- Ovepowered, dispatches larger specimens very quickly and can do decent against crowds.

implying that he isn't only op on anything under hard.

 

[Deafmute]

Berzerker- Balanced what he lacks for in destructive power he makes up for in survivalist skills.

Sharp- Ovepowered, dispatches larger specimens very quickly and can do decent against crowds.

Commando- A tryhard Firebug, a failure.

Demolitions- Slightly OP, takes down crowds and larger specimens extremely quickly but at the risk of self damage and with the penalty of long reload times.

What the hell are you on about

 

[FrozenFireBug]

What the hell are you on about

I'm starting to doubt your location.

 

[CandleJack]

Let me guess, my opinions conflict with popular opinion so you get upset?

I'm starting to doubt your location.

Fixed.

 

[FrozenFireBug]

Fixed.

The masses can have their own opinions, I will have mine. Let's not get into this and just read and try our best to appreciate eachothers halfassery without bashing it to bits.

 

[CandleJack]

The masses can have their own opinions, I will have mine. Let's not get into this and just read and try our best to appreciate eachothers halfassery without bashing it to bits.

Halfarsery? Halfarsery?

I'll have you know i put in two and a half arses.

 

[Undedd Jester]

Noone has a problem with conflicting points of view, but would you mind explaining your opinions on the Berserker, Sharpshooter, Mando and Demo?

Berserkers can kill every single specimen in the game single handed... I would hardly say that is lacking in destructive power. You throw in the fact that on the run speicmens cannot really hope to catch him you got yourself a pretty overpowered class.

Shaprshooter takes 2 Xbox shots to kill a Scrake, 4 to kill a FP. Crawlers are buggers to headshot up close and gorefasts every now and then refuse to use their head hitbox. Sharpie is pretty well balanced, but if anything he is underpowered, not overpowered.

Mando a try hard Firebug? I mean I'll fight for the Firebug harder than anyone else, but I'd be lying if I were to say I can totally out class a skilled Commando. Sure I personally am not very good as the Mando, but I know a fair few people who are a boss with the class.

Demo is perfectly balanced. His raw power is heavily temptered by the cost of his weapon use, and alot of the time, him taking the lead and firing at everything that moves causes more problems than it solves. I myself am a decent demo, and I know 1 or 2 exceptional ones, and the biggest problem we find is that the class is nearly impossible to play without a good supporting team.

Soooo.... if you have evidence to the contrary I'll listen, but merely stating classes are under or overpowered doesn't wash in these forums

 

[Aze]

Shaprshooter takes 2 Xbox shots to kill a Scrake, 4 to kill a FP. Crawlers are buggers to headshot up close and gorefasts every now and then refuse to use their head hitbox. Sharpie is pretty well balanced, but if anything he is underpowered, not overpowered.

Actually i can sorta vouch for Sharpshooter being both underpowered and overpowered at the same time. (All from a camp-tactic on HoE difficulty pov)

2 things that can make it underpowered:
1) Bumpy ground. My gosh i hate to play maps where there is debris all over the place. Sharpshooter can be such a mess to play on such maps
2) Xbow. Really, it actually kinda suck on HoE imo. It's costly, both ammo and weapon, low ammo, heavy and really slow rate of fire. Only 2 good things it has going for it is the scope and the penetration

2 things that can make it overpowered:
1) NONbumpy ground. If you are decent enough at getting headshots, give the sharpie a long hallway with no bumpy ground and you got yourself a beast of a class. Bedlam's camping spot left of the spawning area is a good example.
2) Above criteria combined with a LAR+M14. Total beastclass. I was at that Bedlam hallway, 6-man HoE with a LAR and M14 (been training to use that combo more) and WOW it's powerful! I was basicly the main sweeper AND the heavy hitter.

So generally, i would verdict the perk as balanced actually. But it really depends on the environment, more so than any other class imo (demo too ofc, but not as much). Plus, Xbow + HC is kinda crap on HoE, since it narrows you more as of a heavy hitter (less sweeping power) but you actually aren't that powerful anyway. For example, the Xbow has very little ammo and the HC can't oneshot crawlers on HoE...


Everything else you said (about Demo, Zerker and Mando) i totally agreed with

 

[FrozenFireBug]

Comando seems to be a hot topic so let's start with that first.

See, in my little numbskulled head, I picture Support Specialist, Commando and Firebug as combat classes. The Commando falls in the middle of the two, not as good as the firebug against crowds, not as good as the S.Spec against the big guys. He doesn't seem to excell against either, but does an average job for both, personally I find this a disadvantage, some may find it an advantage, but this is my pointless wall of text here.

Berserker has a good yet not great damage per second, not to mention he has to get up close and personal and go nuts, unless he has the common sense to bring a back up weapon. Despite this, he can hold his own pretty well seeing as he doesn't need ammo for melee weapons (Herpderp) and his great damage resistance, not to mention speed bonuses for getting out of sticky situations and kiting. Personally I find the class very fun.

Demolitions, suuuuure explosives cost alot, but come on, with this perk you're kill whoring like crazy! You probably have twice the income of your team mates by the end of a wave assuming you don't use the LAW. And really, a 1600 dps weapon with splash damage, extremely powerful proximity mines and to top it off you gain extra damage against fleshies? However as I stated in my overly edited comment before this, you can damage yourself, you have a small ammo capacity and a long reload time. It is nearly impossible to function in cqc. In my opinion, the downsides don't balance out the upsides.

And as for the Sharpshooter, I kinda summed it up earlier, good at taking down large specimens and good at taking down crowds when SPAMEBR happy. The only way I could ever see someone calling this class underpowered is if the game screws you over with the head hitboxes night and day, and that isn't even relative to the actual balacing of the game.

There, I've tried to explain things the best I can, now leave me alone and let me eat my mushrooms in peace.

 

[poosh]

About Sharpshooter:
I totally agree with Aze about bumpy ground - it's hell for sharpie. Add here also stairs and sloped floor (like the wind tunnel in Santa's Lair).
But about long hallways: I definetely like HC more M14 due to penetration. You can easely kill 3 gorefasts with 1 HC headshot. Yes, HC can't kill crawler with 1 body shot on HoE, same as M14. But thanks to penetration you can kill 2 crawlers with 2 HC body shots, when M14 needs 4. So I prefer to use LAR on crawlers when holding LAR/M14 combination.
But the most problem of M14 are Stalkers. They are hard to see on long or even moderate distances, and if you miss the head (and you often do, while trying to kill a zed behind Stalker), you need 3 M14 shots to finish invisible b**ch on HoE. HC, however requires only 2 shots, penetrates the body and kills zed behind her (up to Gorefast).

2 skilled sharpies with xbows kill Fleshpound very fast and easy. Each of them needs to make 2 headshots, first hit rages him, and second can be done while he is doing rage animation.
XBOW + M14 2 sharpie combination, can be used as well: you will need to do 2 xbow + 4 M14 headshots to kill Fleshpound in 6p HoE game. But this can be dangerous: if 4-th M14 shot is made before 2-nd xbow shot, then second will leave Fleshpound decapitated, but still alive... and really pissed off.

 

[poosh]

IMHO firebug is good with combination with demolitions, commando - with sharpies. Because it is hard to snipe in flames, especially when using M14 - you can't see the red dot in flames.

Demolitions are not overpowered! When using nade launchers, you can't kill Scrakes efficiently on higher difficulties. On 6p HoE you need to empty full M32 clip (6 nades) to head or upper body (makes ~2x damage) to kill 1 Scrake. In addition notice, that he will rage 3-rd shot, and if there are other Scrakes around him, they will rage too. Killing Fleshpound with M32 is easy, but the same thing here - if there are Scrakes nearby, they will rage. LAW stuns Scrakes and wounds fleshies really bad, but can't be used on small stuff - you will simply run out of rockets in the middle of the wave. So as you see - demo is pretty well balanced.

Berserker is an another story. He is great soloer, where he is most overpowered (mostly because he is too fast and zeds are too stupid), but still bad team player - he can't hold the position unless he is acting like "cork in the bottleneck" and supported by medic.

 

[Aze]

About Sharpshooter:
I totally agree with Aze about bumpy ground - it's hell for sharpie. Add here also stairs and sloped floor (like the wind tunnel in Santa's Lair).
But about long hallways: I definetely like HC more M14 due to penetration. You can easely kill 3 gorefasts with 1 HC headshot. Yes, HC can't kill crawler with 1 body shot on HoE, same as M14. But thanks to penetration you can kill 2 crawlers with 2 HC body shots, when M14 needs 4.

I'm not dissing the HC over the M14 for trash, not at all. The HC is great. At least up til round 6. Then on round 7 when FP's appear, the M14 is awesome to have for the Fleshies, while still being a decent headshot sweeper weapon. After all, the Sharpie's MAIN point in the group is to help take care of the bigger enemies
EDIT: Plus, on 5-man HoE (not 6-man HoE, which is a bummer) Sirens and Husks are also 1-headshotted by the M14 which is really useful for you and your team. Thus why i've started to like the M14 more these days (and limitting my pub servers on HoE to only 5 men )

Also, for lone trash targets i woop out the 9mm anyway to conserve M14 and LAR ammo

So I prefer to use LAR on crawlers when holding LAR/M14 combination.

I also use LAR on crawlers (unless im in a situation where switching from the M14 is a bad idea, like when the LAR is empty for example)

 

[outofrealman]

Why people keep thinking demo is causing problem? Unless the demo have really NO IDEA of how to play the class, demo is solving or at least pausing most of the problems.

1. Area stun. A single M79 or M32 shot stuns up to husk. Every gorefasts is stuned in the area and most of the smaller zeds are killed (crawlers, stalkers clots). Even they survived, they are stuned AND BLOCKING EVERYTHING ELSE behind them.

2. Big damage. Direct impact to the upper body instan kill 6-man HoE sirens and leave 6-man HoE husk with only several hundred health left. It is THE most effective weapon against fleshpounds (side note, 2 LAW rockets DO NOT kill 6-man HoE fps), and do ~1/6 damage to 6-man HoE scrakes on upper body impact. Add in 1 or 2 nades? You do spike damage to your target and stun or kill anything else around it.

So the "so called" draw backs:
1. Smoke: who really cares wher your goal is winning and not having the most kill count? Anything inside the smoke is either stuned or dead.

2. Useless in close combat. Yes, you really cant do anything if swarmed by anything. But you can always hit the wall on the side or hit the ceiling. Thanks to explosive resistance, it may only hurt you for 10-20 health.

And that's why many people dont like demo, because most demo produce smoke way too close to the team. A demo should not hit the leading zed most of the time. Unless it is a husk nearing to fire, or a siren you can instan kill with, or a fleshpound you can take down quickly for good.

Even a scrake is leading the zeds, you should be aiming for what's behind it. From my experience, only direct impact will unstun a scrake. So aiming that clot next to the scrake do fair amont of damage and dont unstun him. What you are stuning is ANYTHING else which can harm the berserker or the support running up to his face to alt-fire him.

On maps where the defensive position is having a bottleneck, demo and support dominates the map (which applies to most of the official maps). Thanks to their area of effect and really high damage output. Even on opened maps like farm, they are still useful. But they may want to add in a katana in their combo to prevent wasting too much ammo.

Compare it with the fire bug? No matter how god like you are as a firebug, you are just burning those zeds. Not to mention EACH TIME you fire, you make a thick fire line to everyone's screen. Blocking quite a lot of sight. Any perk drop that clot blocking the shots for the husk behind, you just let that clot burn for 5 seconds.

At least commndo drop trash fast, and dont need to fear about running out of ammo even they have to gun down mutiple medium sized zeds over and over.

 

[Deafmute]

I don't really care if you doubt my location. Being that I'm a heterosexual female, it's intended to be a joke. Also your views don't make me "upset", I just had absolutely no idea how you came to the conclusion you did on any of them. Now...

See, in my little numbskulled head, I picture Support Specialist, Commando and Firebug as combat classes. The Commando falls in the middle of the two, not as good as the firebug against crowds, not as good as the S.Spec against the big guys. He doesn't seem to excell against either, but does an average job for both, personally I find this a disadvantage, some may find it an advantage, but this is my pointless wall of text here.

I would much, much rather have a good Commando on the team than a Firebug, and that's not because it's my favorite class. Firebug is a good DOT class but just can't put out the same amount of damage in a short time like Commando. Commando is an excellent sweeper, and I'm not sure how anyone could consider him a "tryhard Firebug."

Berserker has a good yet not great damage per second, not to mention he has to get up close and personal and go nuts, unless he has the common sense to bring a back up weapon. Despite this, he can hold his own pretty well seeing as he doesn't need ammo for melee weapons (Herpderp) and his great damage resistance, not to mention speed bonuses for getting out of sticky situations and kiting. Personally I find the class very fun.

Getting up close is hardly a problem for a halfway decent Zerker. Given some time, he can solo any specimen in the game, so I'm really not seeing how that is balanced.

Demolitions, suuuuure explosives cost alot, but come on, with this perk you're kill whoring like crazy! You probably have twice the income of your team mates by the end of a wave assuming you don't use the LAW. And really, a 1600 dps weapon with splash damage, extremely powerful proximity mines and to top it off you gain extra damage against fleshies? However as I stated in my overly edited comment before this, you can damage yourself, you have a small ammo capacity and a long reload time. It is nearly impossible to function in cqc. In my opinion, the downsides don't balance out the upsides.

Kill whoring in a co-op game? What does that even mean? Yes, Demo is powerful. He's also balanced. Not sure what difficulty you're playing on, but Demos I play with mainly assist with crowds and help take down FPs when needed. There's not really enough money to spam pipes everywhere on HoE.

And as for the Sharpshooter, I kinda summed it up earlier, good at taking down large specimens and good at taking down crowds when SPAMEBR happy. The only way I could ever see someone calling this class as underpowered is if the game screws you over with the head hitboxes night and day, and that isn't even relative to the actual balacing of the game.

Fair enough, although I'm still not seeing how SS could be considered overpowered.

 

[timur]

I'm starting to doubt your location.

Don't.

 

[FrozenFireBug]

This is my pointless wall of text here.

 

[outofrealman]

Demo is NOT assisting other to take down fps. Its the other way around. The demo either kills that fp in 3 seconds or leave it with only a little health where anyone with perked weapon can kill him if they want.

Oh... and I can see now nobody add in "support" when they talk about balance. HA, I remember back in beta everyone says support, commando and demo is balanced. Just as I predicted, support is another overpowered perk when people start to be a better support (the kat + huntty trick on scrake is not included).

 

[Mr. Foster]

Like most have said, Support is slightly OP in the hands of someone who knows how to play him. However, I think the biggest change needs to come in the form of his grenades. At his current state, the grenades are what enable him to effectively solo any mob.

Being that the Demolition perk exists, there is absolutely no reason for the Support's grenades to do any more than normal grenade damage, and no reason for him to be able to carry any more than normal. Remove the damage bonus, and reduce the amount carried to 5.

This change, I feel, would balance the class out perfectly. He still retains the power of hit shotguns, which is great for mopping up mobs, and is a great aid to help others take out problem Scrakes/Fleshpounds, etc. All of this, while putting more of an emphasis on keeping the wields up, rather than running around blowing stuff up.